storing empties vs SWMBO

[CheeseOnRy]

I've only been at this hobby a few months, and am up to three fermenters (which I have managed to put out of sight/out of mind), but I have underestimated how much space empty bottles consume.

I read an idea about cloth lined milk crates for stacking in another thread which I thought was a great, but I'm curious what else you guys have come up with.

 

[j1n]

I only have two places in my house that i can call mine. The garage and my office. I store most my beer stuff in the garage and some in my office. right now i have prob 100+ bottles in the corner of my office in bags and boxes. They are all clean and prob going to use them tomorrow when i bottle 2 kegs full of beer with my beer gun. The wife doesn't complain cause this is my area.

 

[Yooper]

It's hard if you're in a small house or apartment. Brewing stuff does take up alot of room.

I have a BIG house, and my house is still full of stuff. In my office right now, there are four carboys, two 8 gallon fermenters, three kegs of red wine, and a kegerator with 5 kegs. That's just in one room! I have carboys of wine behind a chair in the living room (maybe 6 of them), a brewery in the laundry room, and all the rest in the basement like the grainbill and 300 pounds of grain, along with with the extra fermenters and bottles and of course the wine cellar.

Kegging takes up less room than bottling, if that helps!

 

[eatmorefrogs]

bombers are a better bang for your buck spacewise.

 

[Cyclman]

It's hard if you're in a small house or apartment. Brewing stuff does take up alot of room.

I have a BIG house, and my house is still full of stuff. In my office right now, there are four carboys, two 8 gallon fermenters, three kegs of red wine, and a kegerator with 5 kegs. That's just in one room! I have carboys of wine behind a chair in the living room (maybe 6 of them), a brewery in the laundry room, and all the rest in the basement like the grainbill and 300 pounds of grain, along with with the extra fermenters and bottles and of course the wine cellar.

Kegging takes up less room than bottling, if that helps!

I am SOOOO glad to hear I'm not the only homebrew "hoarder." I have at least 6 cases of wine, 400+ bottles of beer (plus a keg), 50 bottles of Mead, a Surly Smoke clone lagering, and a Zinfandel bulk ageing. I enjoy a dozen or so drinks a week, but the "pipeline" I have is more about my love of brewing, making wine, making Mead, Lemonwine, Apfelwein. And that doesn't count my kettles, grain mill, 8 or so carboys, not to mention the space taken by my chest freezer fermentation chamber and beer fridge.

If anyone is in the Denver area and wants to share some alcohol, PM me, my wife is happy for me to liberally share!

 

[HB_in_Subic]

I have a 2 bedroom house with covered back porch. I have staked off the back porch as "my area" and I store the empties out there along with my brewing equipment (ferm chamber, burner, etc.). I am going to get a metal cabinet built for storing the small stuff (racking cane, tubes, stoppers, etc.) and rebuild my old worn out grill stand to accommodate the banjo burner and kettle. I also plan to make cabinet space under the counter of the old grill stand. I have 130+ 1L bottles that I store approx. 70 in my closet and the remainder on the back porch (covered, no direct sunlight). I did make some crates of a design that I found here to help organize the bottles which helped some. I am also considering kegging in the future to ease storage space..

 

[Paps]

Kegging takes up less room than bottling,!

What Yooper said!

 

[jeff62217]

I'm in a 2bd/1ba condo, around 1200sq/ft. Luckily we have 2 single car garages, both storing cars + storage/tools/brew stuff/ empty bottles etc...
I have to make every inch of space count so I have limited conditioning space, ferm control is a cooler with iced water bottles, kegerator only holds two 5 gallon cornys plus yeast bank + room for a few beers.

It's a challenge but can still be done... usually means more work though.

Luckily for me I probably have the best SWMBO ever as she almost never complains or objects, despite me brewing every/every other weekend.